ID/Creationism - How fast were extinctions?

[H3LL]

Now I'm no paleontologist, so I wonder if anyone can help me out with this one and follow the thinking below.

ID/Creationists make many wild claims, but for the sake of argument lets assume the claim is correct that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

We have a reasonable record of human history going back about 4,000 years both anecdotal biblical characters and good archeological evidence. I seem to remember reading that some Egyptian civilizations were as remote to ancient Romans a ancient Rome is to us, among other evidence.

No ID/Creationist denies the existence of fossils as they can see them, touch them and even use them in fun places like their "museums".

Many fossils, even to the untrained eye, are obviously not from creatures alive today.

There is no mention in the bible or records from old civilizations of prehistoric creatures.

This leaves us 2,000 years (being generous) to have all these creatures appear and disappear.

So the question: What must the rate of extinction have been for the fossil record creatures to have appeared and disappeared in 2,000 years?

I have an image of Ptrisha saying to her sick uncle;

"Ptommy, while you were lying in bed sick for the last week, you missed T-Rex. It ate Ptracy's cat, squashed all the vegetables in her garden and ruined her washing. Good job they're all extinct now".

Would a week be too long?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Like many other arguments, this has the weakness of being built on logic. If creationists were ready to apply logic to their belief system, they would not be creationists. ERGO: No amount of logic is going to sway a creationist.

The only reason to argue with such people is for the sake of possible fence-sitters.

Hans

 

[Throg]

ID/Creationists make many wild claims, but for the sake of argument lets assume the claim is correct that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

We have a reasonable record of human history going back about 4,000 years both anecdotal biblical characters and good archeological evidence.

I suppose it depends on the definition of "good" archeological evidence but it is my understanding that there is archeological evidence going back substantially further than 6,000 years.

No ID/Creationist denies the existence of fossils as they can see them, touch them and even use them in fun places like their "museums".

Some creationists deny that fossils are what science has taken them to be. I have heard creationists state that they were placed by God as tests of our faith and that He even went so far as to make them appear much older than they are to make it a really good tests.

Creationists can be quite ingenious, if bafflingly forgiving of a God who would deliberately mislead us about the nature of the Universe.

 

[H3LL]

Like many other arguments, this has the weakness of being built on logic. If creationists were ready to apply logic to their belief system, they would not be creationists. ERGO: No amount of logic is going to sway a creationist.

The only reason to argue with such people is for the sake of possible fence-sitters.

Hans

I agree. Humour me. I have one hanging onto the fence by fingernails and I want them to fall on our side and start walking and not scramble back over and hide in fear. With luck they'll learn to run, sing and dance later.

I suppose it depends on the definition of "good" archeological evidence but it is my understanding that there is archeological evidence going back substantially further than 6,000 years.

Also agreed, but I was thinking more on the written record or that depicted in carvings etc. Pulling in cave paintings and other evidence jumps it away from the anecdotal biblical accounts and I was trying to keep it within an acceptable biblical context. I thought 4,000 years was reasonable on those terms, but I'm willing to change up or down. Whichever is more fundy plausible.

Some creationists deny that fossils are what science has taken them to be. I have heard creationists state that they were placed by God as tests of our faith and that He even went so far as to make them appear much older than they are to make it a really good tests.

This is claiming to know the mind of god and is not mentioned in the bible. Dodgy ground even for a fundy. I think I'm clear on that one If we stick to the bible writings.

Creationists can be quite ingenious, if bafflingly forgiving of a God who would deliberately mislead us about the nature of the Universe.

That's what you can expect from the mind of a being that loves his fruit more than his children.

 

[Throg]

Also agreed, but I was thinking more on the written record or that depicted in carvings etc. Pulling in cave paintings and other evidence jumps it away from the anecdotal biblical accounts and I was trying to keep it within an acceptable biblical context. I thought 4,000 years was reasonable on those terms, but I'm willing to change up or down. Whichever is more fundy plausible.

I wouldn't like to try and guess what is going to be plausible to any particular fundamentalist. I vaguely remember a couple of line from "Inherit the Wind", in the creationist prosecutor asked about contradictions in the bible say:
"I do not think about those things I do not think about."
To which Spencer Tracy responds,
"Do you ever think about the things you do think about?"

This is claiming to know the mind of god and is not mentioned in the bible. Dodgy ground even for a fundy. I think I'm clear on that one If we stick to the bible writings.

I think you may be over-optimistic here. Despite claims to the contrary, fundamentalists never seem to stick to only what's in the bible. Good luck though. I'll keep watching this thread.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I agree. Humour me. I have one hanging onto the fence by fingernails and I want them to fall on our side and start walking and not scramble back over and hide in fear. With luck they'll learn to run, sing and dance later.


*snip*

Mmmokay. Well, we know of many thousand extict species, none of which have been observed as extant in historical times. We must also assume that they did not make it on Noa's Ark, since catering for the larger ones of them would have been tricky business indeed. This leaves us with only about a milliennium since Creation, where they could have flourished and died out. Quite a carnage, makes the present man-induced extinction rate look like a picnic.

A couple of other simple, shure-fire arguments:

Parasites. How did parasites, many of which cause life-threatening diseases exist while only Adam and Eve were on Earth? Did they have all those parasites? If yes, how did they suvive? Same during the Flood; did Noah and his family host all these parasites? (Of course, same applies to animal parasites)

Bacteria and vira. Essentially the same as parasites, but some fundies are in denial about infectuous diseases (they might, for instance, be homeopaths), so it is useful to keep micro- and macroscopic parasites separated.

Amount of water on Earth: There is not enough water on Earth to cover all land.

Starlight: We can observe stars that are far more than 6000 LY away. How can their light reach us?

Food-chains: This is one for ID'ers. ID'ers modify the timescale of genesis, and acknowledge that creation may have taken a very long time, but that doesn't fly; nearly all life forms are part of big ecosystems, food-chains. Miss one part of an ecosystem for any amount of time, and the whole system breaks down. So, either everything was created in a very short time, like six days, and ID'ers usually acknowledge that this is solidly contradicted by archeological evidence, or species evolved, filling in niches, replacing each other, etc. In short: Choose between fundie creation, or evolution, you can't go half-way.

Hans

 

[Bikewer]

I think it was in one of Gould's books, but not sure. Anyway, he had a marvelous description of the flood-surviving species fleeing at a breakneck pace from the Ark, just steps ahead of ever-advancing humanity, to take up their rightful places in the farflung corners of the Earth.

He envisioned the poor Koala, limping gamely across the continents and bravely swimming the Pacific to arrive in Australia...Perhaps carried over by the Aboriginies.

Of course, same Aborigines have an unbroken history of some 40,000 years....

 

[voidx]

Another problem with the flood has to do with marine wildlife. Did the sea's rise, or was it all from rain. At which point was the flood mostly freshwater or saltwater? If saltwater, then it covered the whole earth, so how did we end up with so many freshwater sources, and where did the freshwater fish come from, they'd all have died in saltwater over that period of time. Not to mention marine fish. Even if there was enough water to cover all the land, a flood of this size would drastically change the salinity of the oceans, again causing a massive die out of most marine wildlife.

The one trick truly fundy ID's attempt is to tie the 6 days of creation to the 6 major epochs of the universe. These don't line up well at all, and as already mentioned, plants and other things come before animals, or vice versa, so how did the majority of ecosystems that hinge on the symbiotic relationship between plant life and animals survive?

 

[Pyrts]

Also agreed, but I was thinking more on the written record or that depicted in carvings etc. Pulling in cave paintings and other evidence jumps it away from the anecdotal biblical accounts and I was trying to keep it within an acceptable biblical context. I thought 4,000 years was reasonable on those terms, but I'm willing to change up or down. Whichever is more fundy plausible.

Well, written text in Egypt goes back to about 3,000 BC (5,000 years ago.) If you go into artifacts and non-written images(designs ... "clan markings") , then we can date with confidence to about 11,000 years ago in the US and about 30,000 years ago in Europe (small bone carving.)

But they don't accept that.

You can really drive them nuts with the Sumerian King List, which does list "The Flood" (not Noah's flood to them, but it could be argued that it IS): http://www.jameswbell.com/a002kinglist.html

They're showing 24,000 years for kings after the flood, 2400 years after the kingship moves to Uruk, and so on and so forth. I forget how much the total is, but it's over 60,000 years. Some of those kings tie into Biblical events, too.

 

[H3LL]

Thanks all.

The biodiversity argument and symbiotic/parasitic relationships are nice angles and concisely put.

The Sumarian King List (nice link) I will keep in my pocket for now.

I think it is important to be careful and respectful to beliefs at this stage. I didn't jump from believer to atheist in one day and I don't expect anybody else to do so and at this stage that's not my intention. Atheism IMHO is impossible to impose, it needs to be discovered. Sceptical in some areas will do for now.

Questioning statements from authority should be the first step and recognising valid evidence the next.

I'm hopeful.

We meet again on Sunday.

 

[FreeChile]

Some creationists have ducked this punch by being flexible in their beliefs. For example, certain denominations of the Judeo-Christian faith, no longer hold Genesis to be a story of creation. Instead, they interpret it symbolically or figuratively. They even conclude that it would be misleading to think of it in literal terms. In this particular faith, they have adjusted Genesis to mean a book about the revelation of the one and only God and not much else.

This leaves a lot of room for future adaptation.

 

[Throg]

Some creationists have ducked this punch by being flexible in their beliefs. For example, certain denominations of the Judeo-Christian faith, no longer hold Genesis to be a story of creation. Instead, they interpret it symbolically or figuratively. They even conclude that it would be misleading to think of it in literal terms. In this particular faith, they have adjusted Genesis to mean a book about the revelation of the one and only God and not much else.

This leaves a lot of room for future adaptation.

I always find this an even less convincing position that fundamentalism. If the Bible is no longer the literal word of God, why believe any of it?

 

[drkitten]

I always find this an even less convincing position that fundamentalism. If the Bible is no longer the literal word of God, why believe any of it?

Viewed as a tool for moral instruction, a fable is often both more easily understandable and more readily accessible than a literal truth.

I don't believe in the literal truth of Aesop's fable about "The Fox and the Grapes," but I do believe in the moral lesson it purports to teach.

 

[Throg]

Viewed as a tool for moral instruction, a fable is often both more easily understandable and more readily accessible than a literal truth.

I don't believe in the literal truth of Aesop's fable about "The Fox and the Grapes," but I do believe in the moral lesson it purports to teach.

True, but I don't suppose you believe in any of Aesop's fable as representations of fact.

 

[drkitten]

True, but I don't suppose you believe in any of Aesop's fable as representations of fact.

There's nothing that prevents a moral from having factual elements (King Alfred and the Cakes, for example).

The standard -- perhaps I should say a standard -- position among the non-literalists is that the historical accuracy of the Bible is somewhat variable (few people would disagree that Herod existed, or the city of Jerusalem, but the talking snake is a little questionable), but the moral directives presented are absolute truth.

Sorting the historic truth from the literary and metaphoric presumably requires a certain degree of expertise, and of course experts will differ in their sorting. Jerusalem almost certainly existed, but we can argue about Nazareth (and as archeology gets better, we will undoubtedly repeat our arguments over and over). But this particular process isn't confined to Biblical or religious scholarship by any means. Much of the task of ancient historians in general has been sorting the stories from the truths. Did Troy exist? How about Aeneas? King Arthur? Socrates? Pericles?

 

[Throg]

The standard -- perhaps I should say a standard -- position among the non-literalists is that the historical accuracy of the Bible is somewhat variable (few people would disagree that Herod existed, or the city of Jerusalem, but the talking snake is a little questionable), but the moral directives presented are absolute truth.

Sorting the historic truth from the literary and metaphoric presumably requires a certain degree of expertise, and of course experts will differ in their sorting. Jerusalem almost certainly existed, but we can argue about Nazareth (and as archeology gets better, we will undoubtedly repeat our arguments over and over). But this particular process isn't confined to Biblical or religious scholarship by any means. Much of the task of ancient historians in general has been sorting the stories from the truths. Did Troy exist? How about Aeneas? King Arthur? Socrates? Pericles?

All good points. As you point out, a degree of expertise is required and equally reference to multiple sources. Few would have seriously posited the existence of Troy based purely on the Homer, or Arthur purely on Mallory. On the other hand, most Christians have neither the expertise nor do they refer to multiple sources. The Bible is their only source for Bible history. For a fundamentalist this is to some extent defensible on the basis that it is an article of faith that the Bible is the literal word of God. If one abandons this position then it is much less defensible to calim that anything is true in virtue of the fact that it is in the Bible. It is difficult to see how even moral lessons can be justified on the basis of the Bible as authority once one abandons the fundamentalist position. If the Bible is not the word of God then how can one have confidence that the moral proscriptions and prescriptions contained therein are the word of God?

 

[seayakin]

Some of you have hinted about this, but a common defense for the extinction rate is the flood. (e.g. the dinosaurs et al. didn't make it on the ark). They can always argue that the more recent biodiversity is not due to evolution but to God simply creating more creatures after the flood.

I argued once with a Mormon about the flood and I said that there isn't enough water on the planet to create such a flood. He simply fell back on his crutch and said that God can make anything happen. I have seen more techical arguments where fundies proposed the earth was encircled by a band of water and this came down to create the flood.

 

[Mojo]

Some of you have hinted about this, but a common defense for the extinction rate is the flood. (e.g. the dinosaurs et al. didn't make it on the ark).

The flood seems to be used as a general cure-all for any holes in young-earth creationism.

They can always argue that the more recent biodiversity is not due to evolution but to God simply creating more creatures after the flood.

A variation of this, requiring no further creation by God (I don't think further creation after the first six days is mentioned in the Bible) is that the animals on the ark were representatives of "kinds" which could subsequently develop into other similar animals without evolution actually taking place, much as domestic dogs have been bred into many different shapes and sizes (I didn't say this idea is consistent with any actual facts...)

I argued once with a Mormon about the flood and I said that there isn't enough water on the planet to create such a flood. He simply fell back on his crutch and said that God can make anything happen. I have seen more techical arguments where fundies proposed the earth was encircled by a band of water and this came down to create the flood.

Ah, the old "God dunnit" explanation! I wonder where the water went afterwards?

 

[Throg]

A variation of this, requiring no further creation by God (I don't think further creation after the first six days is mentioned in the Bible) is that the animals on the ark were representatives of "kinds" which could subsequently develop into other similar animals without evolution actually taking place, much as domestic dogs have been bred into many different shapes and sizes (I didn't say this idea is consistent with any actual facts...)

Could we take this a stage further do you think, and have "template animals" on the ark, kind of walking batches of generic stem cells but containing all of the genetic sequences represented in the post-flood animal kingdom? It would drastically reduce space requirements on the ark. Of course, you'd need some pretty smart DNA manipulating enzymes to manage the realisation of all the distinct species we have now but I feel sure a deity like God could manage it.

 

[FreeChile]

I always find this an even less convincing position that fundamentalism. If the Bible is no longer the literal word of God, why believe any of it?

They no longer hold it to be literal. They say it is "inspired" by God in some cases, similar to poetry, music or painting. This also makes the interpretation of it an inspiration by God, which is also used as an argument against non-believers because they, because of their lack of faith, would be devoid of this inspiration. So there's the catch 22: you have to believe in God to be capable of understanding the inspired word of God. Of course, this defense technique is not limited to the more liberal believers. Fundamentalists also react this way when confronted with some of the contradictions in their beliefs.

I would go a step further and say that other types of believers tend to behave this way, as well--always looking for a way out of any contradictions that may exist in a given belief.